[governance] JPA

[Parminder]

Anriette Esterhuysen wrote:
> Thanks for sending this Parminder. 
>
> When you talk about the 'UN system' entering into an agreement with the
> US and ICANN, which part of it did you have in mind?
>   
Anriette

This has deliberately been kept vague so that a range of options remain 
open. It is clear to us that whether it is an external oversight or 
accountability framework, it can only be mediated through a UN body. 
With all our problems with the UN, it is still the only legitimate 
global governance system. After all the human rights framework is also 
UN. We were afraid that mentioning any particular body now would shift 
the debate to the merits of that particular body doing this. At present 
the issue is for the US gov to accept to commit itself to move towards 
legitimate multilateralism in the spirit of WSIS documents. Once such 
political will is established, the right way forward can always be 
figured out. We do expect the US to do some hard bargaining and keep 
some/ considerable leverage on how things move forward.

I think it has to be some place in the ECOSOC; am not too good on this 
kind of stuff. UN SG's office do not have the substantive capacity I 
think, or may be I am wrong.  However, I am very sure it cannot and 
should not be the ITU. ITU is not based on core democratic principles of 
broad public interest governance, and its structures are more like a 
standards body, which it was supposed to be. Also it is important to 
appreciate that we are not talking about replacing ICANN, in which case 
ITU may figure, but about political oversight of ICANN, which has to be 
much broader but less busy public policy/ governance system. ICANN, with 
due modifications, should keep doing the technical management functions 
it does at present.
 

regards

parminder

> And, on a related thought, I wonder if the ITU will be submitting
> comment to the NTIA? 
>
> Anriette
>
> On Sun, 2009-06-07 at 12:05 +0530, Parminder wrote:
>   
>> IT for Change is planning to submit to the following comments on JPA. 
>>
>> These comments are premised on our belief that what we are looking for
>> here is a *major* political decision from the highest level of the US
>> government, and not  merely an administrative change. Therefore, the
>> principal appeal we make has to be strongly political, pitched to the
>> highest principles of fairness and justice, and of globally democratic
>> governance for global issues. The best way to do so is to remind the
>> US government of its commitments at the WSIS, and point out how these
>> commitments call for specific actions by the US government as the JPA
>> comes to an end. It is accordingly also important to connect the
>> post-JPA arrangement to the corresponding elements in the Tunis Agenda
>> that all have agreed to  -  the 'enhanced cooperation' framework. We
>> are a bit surprised as to why the comments of even the actors who are
>> opposed to JPA as well as to a free-float ICANN are not focusing on
>> the obvious space that has some (significant) existing recognition and
>> legitimacy, and was always meant as an exercise, inter alia, to create
>> post-JPA oversight mechanisms.
>>
>> Text of the proposed statement
>>
>> Speaking as a civil society organization from a developing country, we
>> are impressed by the stance taken by the present US administration on
>> issues related to perceptions as well as facts of US hegemony in
>> various global affairs. The most recent pronouncement by President
>> Obama in his address at the Cairo University attests to this
>> refreshing approach which promises a new role for the US in managing
>> our collective global affairs, and a new perception of the US among
>> other countries and people. 
>>
>> “No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear
>> weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to
>> seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons.”
>>
>> It is, in this context, important that the US government recognizes
>> that a unilateral control of critical Internet resources exercised by
>> the US is not tenable, and greatly contributes to the 'hegemonistic'
>> image of the US, and its pursuance of what President Obama rightly
>> called as 'double standards'. The outcome documents of the World
>> Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to which US government is a
>> signatory, recognized this as the application of 'principle of
>> universality' for Internet governance. The summit asserted that that
>> 'all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for
>> international Internet governance'. 'The international management of
>> the Internet should be multilateral, transparent and democratic,with
>> the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society
>> and international organizations'.
>>
>> The WSIS also called for a process of 'enhanced cooperation' to be
>> initiated, inter alia, to deal with the issue of legitimate oversight
>> mechanisms for critical Interent resources. This process should have
>> been initiated by the UN Secretary General in early 2006. Apparently,
>> it is difficult to get on with this process without some clear helpful
>> signs from the US government which holds the oversight power at
>> present, including through the JPA. It will be most befitting the new
>> approach of Obama administration for it to signal its desire to begin
>> the process of 'enhanced cooperation' towards developing legitimate
>> oversight mechanisms as per WSIS principles, and in a manner that
>> address the legitimate interests of all countries and people,
>> including of the US. 
>>
>> As for the possibility of allowing ICANN to subsist without any
>> oversight mechanism, we are strongly against any industry-led
>> regulatory system which, in our view, is an oxymoron. The limits of
>> self-regulation in areas of key public interest have been shown by the
>> recent banking fiasco which is bringing untold miseries all over the
>> world. We are therefore of the firm view that ICANN does require
>> external oversight. 
>>
>> The best way forward therefore is to annul the current JPA, and enter
>> into a new trilateral agreement between ICANN, US and the UN system to
>> start a process towards 'development of globally-applicable principles
>> on public policy issues associated with the coordination and
>> management of critical Internet resources'(as agreed at the WSIS) and
>> also developing appropriate institutional mechanisms of oversight over
>> ICANN, in its tasks of technical management of CIRs. This process, as
>> called for by the WSIS, should be, to repeat, 'multilateral,
>> transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments,
>> the private sector, civil society and international organizations'.
>>
>>
>> (text ends)
>>
>>
>> parminder 
>> plain text document attachment (message-footer.txt)
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